


The Way Old Friends Do

by Iamprongsie



Series: Last Ones Standing [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Angst, Gallipoli Campaign, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Introspection, Look I just wanted to write otp angst bc this one song came on, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Set between Echo's death and Case and Dogma's deaths in Eleven Men Left, pick the ABBA reference, this might be a little confusing if you haven't read that either
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-05-13
Packaged: 2020-03-02 16:14:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18814462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iamprongsie/pseuds/Iamprongsie
Summary: Rex can almost let himself imagine he’s back home with Cody, curled up on someone’s couch or sitting on the sand, losing themselves in their books or each other. Almost. The smell of mud and blood permeates the air, covering the smell of the sea with the smell of rotting garbage.





	The Way Old Friends Do

The trench is dark and silent. Rex and Cody are the only ones awake, both poring over the one book that Rex managed to sneak into his bag after training. It’s muddy and stained and half the pages have turned to pulp, but they manage. They know the story, they’ve been consistently reading it since they got into this hellhole. Hell, they probably don’t even have to read it anymore. They could probably recite the damn thing from memory, and that would save them their last two candles, as well. 

Cody idly turns a page and draws closer to Rex. Around them, their men stir and sigh. There’s still gaps where Echo and Fives were, gaps that haven’t been filled by the poms that got sent up as replacements. Rex sometimes finds himself automatically moving to tell Fives to be quiet and pay attention, or expects to hear Echo’s voice muttering over reg manuals in the middle of the night. Tup and Ben both snore softly, creating a comforting white noise over the sound of Turk bombardment and ANZAC retaliation. It’s almost peaceful, and Rex can almost let himself imagine he’s back home with Cody, curled up on someone’s couch or sitting on the sand, losing themselves in their books or each other. Almost. The smell of mud and blood permeates the air, covering the smell of the sea with the smell of rotting garbage. They’re all camped out in the middle of the trench away from the walls, to avoid getting buried alive if the Turks decide to bomb the shit out of them in the middle of the night. 

It’s happened before and none of them want that to happen again. Anakin still occasionally wakes everyone with his nightmares, like he’s been buried again and again in his head. 

The artillery stops, just for a brief moment, and the two men look up from their book and grin at each other. Above them, the unfamiliar stars (even after so long here) whirl, creating a devil dance through the sky to match the one above their home. Rex thinks he could like it here, curled up with his love. If there weren’t a war, if they weren’t in what amounts to hell on earth, if their men weren’t _dying_ around them. 

A strong wind picks up and blows out their candle, plunging them into darkness. It takes a few seconds for Rex’s vision to adjust, until he can just barely pick out Cody’s features under the moonlight. Cody takes longer to adjust, blinking slowly. The dim light puts the scar on his face into stark relief, and Rex reaches up and touches it, feeling the familiar jagged edges. He remembers sitting by Cody’s hospital bed after getting into that fight back home, remembers having to fight just to see him in there. He remembers the brutal army training, passed out in the barracks, far apart from each other for fear the other men would find them out and report them. 

Cody leans into his touch and kisses him gently, and Rex remembers the happy times as well. Their first kiss, stolen on the beach in the dark while a party raged six feet from their hiding place. Sitting in Cody’s front room, reading their books and listening to the sea. Everything about their early days, when they were younger and stupider and happy, far away from this godforsaken hellhole with its flies and mud and loss, constant loss of friends and brothers and even the enemy, none of them deserve this. 

Rex breaks the kiss and leans his forehead against Cody’s, hit with a wave of melancholy. They both know this could be their last night, they’re going over the top tomorrow. Someone will die, someone will mourn, and those could be Rex and Cody by tomorrow night- well, this evening. The light hits Cody’s battered watch enough for Rex to read it. 1am. 0100. Seven hours to go, and why the hell are they going over in broad daylight? Going over in the dark kills enough of their men, from the mines to the snipers and the artillery. Broad daylight means all of that, and the Turks have the high ground at the moment. 

Rex is terrified. This entire run’s a bad idea, people will die, innocent men under his command. Rex could die. _Cody_ could die. 

He doesn’t want to live without his lover. 

“You ready for tomorrow?” Cody asks, his voice a barely heard whisper over the snoring and the artillery. 

“I will be. We’ve had some good times, right?”

Cody nods and kisses him again. “And some bad times. We made it through, we’ll get through tomorrow.”

“We’ll face it together, won’t we?”

“The way old friends do,” Cody replies, and Rex kisses him again, until the dawn breaks and they prepare for their doom. 

Rex won’t care what comes tomorrow, as long as he gets to spend what little time he has left with the man he loves. They’ll face it together, like almost everything they face. And maybe they’ll get a little more time.


End file.
